Those of us that attended the online Lillehammer Energy Claims Conference in March this year could not have failed to be impressed by the excellent presentation by Ewan Saunders at Serica Energy. Ewan demonstrated The Bruce Platform’s Production, Utility and Quarters (PUQ) digital twin giving us some insight into how it has been developed and what it can be used for. The digital twin for the Bruce platform is essentially a very detailed 3D digital model allowing users of the model to navigate around the platform in a virtual environment.

In the event of a claim, the benefits of having a digital twin of this nature include a reduced scope for damage survey and more rapid repair. This would be particularly beneficial on some older assets where technical records may not be complete or readily available. The simplified damage assessment and repair & reinstatement process and associated reduction in lead times will also be of benefit to all those involved in the claims process.

Depending on the nature of any loss or damage to the platform, a digital twin that is limited to a 3D model is unlikely to be useful in the development of a Root Cause Analysis (RCA). However, should the model be integrated with the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system on the platform, whereby real time system parameters such as pressure, temperature and flow rates are also captured, then this could be extremely helpful in the RCA process and also potentially in determining the extent of damage in the case of an incident. But is the advent of digital twins all good news or are there any drawbacks?

One obvious question which comes up time and again when we talk about digitisation and artificial intelligence (AI) is what are the risks from a cyber-attack? On 7 May 2021, the Colonial Pipeline in the US suffered a ransomware cyber-attack which turned out to be the largest cyber-attack on an oil infrastructure target in the
US, clearly demonstrating that the control systems of oil and gas infrastructure are indeed vulnerable from cyber-attacks.

I asked Laetitia Fouquet, Head of Cyber at Charles Taylor Adjusting to comment on her views of whether a full digital twin increases insurers exposure. This is what she had to say.

“I think there are obvious benefits to a digital twin in real time, but as with all digital systems, sometimes the weakest link is not the IT system. One operator could be lured to give away their credentials through social engineering and this could open the systems to access by malicious actors. We have seen companies where the attack was not detected as the malicious actors’ steps in looking into the system appeared to be legitimate, at least until the point when they deployed malware. Therefore, it may not be detected early or may appear to be legitimate or a false alert. AI has the advantage to train itself on recognising not only abnormal use, but features could be added so it will look into more parameters such as recognising IP addresses, unusual time or location for logins etc…

I would anticipate that the goal of the malicious actors would be monetise access quickly with either denying access to the digital twin or compromising data and then agreeing to release access against the payment of a ransom. But it could also be used to access the digital twin to spy on the company. In the second scenario, they may sell the information online.

When you start linking one system to the other you need to think about both systems’ security, how they interact, what security you have around each system, who has access to each or both systems and how this could be exploited. So, whilst integrating into SCADA may prove to have operational benefits, it may also create more risks that both systems may be exploited. Malicious actors are resourceful and may try to access through the weakest link and this may be through a monitoring tool which uses legacy software or unprotected access.”

To mitigate the risk of a cyberattack as described by Laetitia, inherent cyber resilience is built into control systems. However, knowing that these can be breached by determined malicious actors, can digitisation actually help reduce the risk of cyber-attacks?

In a recent article published by Brad Bonnett, Technical Director, Applied Intelligence at Wood, he makes the case that a digital twin can allow an operator to mitigate the risk of a cyber-attack by training operators to recognise symptoms of a compromise of the control system and to respond accordingly. He writes that a digital twin can provide a real-time responsive environment to simulate various types of control system compromises. The objective here is to train front-line operational personnel to recognise a control system compromise, declare an emergency and initiate the safe shutdown of the facility.

Digital twins of varying complexities are becoming increasingly prominent in the oil and gas industry ranging from those that are limited to the physical attributes of its physical twin, to the more cutting-edge twins that can fully simulate the operation of a complex system in real time. Whilst the cautious may argue that these add risk to the operation of a facility through the potential threat of cyber-attack, there are others that see the benefit from a digital twin in reducing that very same threat.

Mike McMahon

Managing Director – Natural Resources, UK, Europe and Singapore

mike.mcmahon@charlestaylor.com

EXPERTISE:
Loss Adjuster, Mechanical Engineer, Marine Engineer, Offshore Construction, Mechanical & Electrical Rotating Machinery, Natural Resources, Drilling & Production

LOCATION:

London